Hargrove Wins 47th District Top 2 Race

--Covington, WA

Mark Hargrove surged well ahead of his two opponents in the battle for Legislative District 47, position 1, with a five percent lead over the three-term Democrat incumbent, Geoff Simpson in the latest results.  The third candidate, Democrat Leslie Hamada, was in third place, but did far better than expected against an entrenched and well-financed incumbent.

Commented Mark Hargrove: “Geoff Simpson dug into the deep pockets of his Seattle based special interest supporters and out-spent us by 700%.  He sent out glossy mailings, bought television advertising, and hired dozens of workers to distribute his literature and put up his signs. Still, he lost.  In contrast, we ran a grass roots effort with not a single paid staff member; just hundreds of friends and neighbors. These are people who are sick and tired of being supposedly ‘represented’ in Olympia by a person who clearly does not care about their needs and priorities. Apparently, Mr. Simpson’s only goal in Olympia is to vote the agenda of the special-interest groups who dump big cash into his campaign every two years.”

Hargrove for House campaign spokesperson, David Serlin, pointed out “There are only two incumbent legislators who did not win their primary Tuesday, and I do not believe it is chance that both have also shown themselves to be more ethically-challenged than any of their colleagues this past year.  These results tell us that voters are sick of government officials whose conduct is not becoming of their office.”  He continued, “Nearly 60 percent of the voters in our district chose somebody other than Geoff Simpson.  Our community clearly wants change, and we recognize that Mark Hargrove will be much better at representing our values and our priorities in the Legislature.”

Hargrove also tipped his hat to Leslie Hamada’s efforts. “Despite decades of hard work in the community, a college degree in political science, and remarkable insight into potential specific solutions for many local problems, Mrs. Hamada got no support from her own party and reportedly raised less than $5,000 as compared to Simpson’s $140,000.  But despite this lack of political support and Simpson’s incredible 28 to 1 cash advantage over Mrs. Hamada, he was able to capture little more than twice her votes. Clearly, our community is tired of the “Votes for Sale Here” sign that some special interests think they see over our community.” 

Hargrove added “While Mrs. Hamada and I happen to prefer different political parties, as we can see from the outpouring of support we both received in the primary, this election is not about simplistic partisan labels, it is about taking our legislative seat back and putting it to work for our community; not just special-interests pulling the strings from somewhere else.”

For more information, please visit Mark on-line at: www.MarkHargrove.org